Last Thursday one lucky central coast resident traveled to Claremont to take possession of her new car.
Lompoc resident Terri Coleman is this year’s winner of the Claremont Educational Foundation’s annual car raffle and will be driving home in a new Toyota RAV4 LE.
The vehicle was donated by Claremont Toyota, the 11th year that the local dealership has partnered with CEF for a car raffle.
Bruce Wright, fleet manager at Claremont Toyota has been involved in all eleven of the raffles, but this one was a bit different because they substituted the usual Prius with the RAV4, a crossover SUV.
Maybe it was the switch up offer of an SUV or perhaps people were just happy that the coronavirus wasgoing away, but there was a lot of excitement about the raffle this year and for the first time ever CEF sold all 2,400 tickets, according to CEF raffle chair, Julia Zuker Brunzell.
She said in past years the CEF team was hawking tickets right up to the point when the winning name was drawn, but this year they had to turn people away the day of the event, which was June 5.
CEF changed things up in another way this year by holding the drawing in the parking lot of Rhino Records in the Claremont Village. The raffle featured music from Kahokapella, CHS Jazz Ensemble, and Village Dace Arts Taiko drums. Bert and Rocky’s gave away root beer floats.
Ms. Coleman, who is a 1975 CHS graduate, said the timing could not be better as her husband Mike’s Honda Civic is 17 years old and has 220,000 miles. However, they plan to keep the Civic because it has a manual transmission and they want to teach their nieces and nephews how to drive a stick shift.
Terri and Mike buy CEF raffle tickets every year, usually from recently retired CUSD educator Jack Harper, who is also on the CEF board.
“Thank you so much to Claremont Toyota for donating this car. I think CEF is such a great cause,” Ms. Coleman said.
In addition to the car she will also receive a National Park Annual Pass, an Osprey Daylight backpack along with a shoulder sling bag and a United by Blue Meal Kit. Ms. Coleman is a retired assistant dean in the college of engineering at University of California, Santa Barbara.
CEF raised more than $43,000 from this year’s raffle, with a portion of the proceeds going back to the schools and booster clubs that sold the tickets. The rest of the money will support CEF’s many programs.
Claremont Educational Foundation is currently holding its end of the school year matching challenge with a goal of raising $3,000, half of which has already been pledged as a matching gift. As of Tuesday they had reached $436, nearly one third of the goal. Visit supportcef.com/donate to make your donation today.

by Steven Felschundneff | steven@claremont-courier.com